Services

In broad terms, three services are offered:

• A procurement practitioner database and candidate evaluation tool, which is offered in a joint venture with CIPS Africa (www.cips.org.za)  with the following objectives:

• To serve as a forum where procurement practitioners may present themselves to recruiters in search for candidates;
• To serve as an advertising platform for employers, who do not use recruiters, in search of staff;
• To serve as tool for personal benchmarking and career development as an individual or in a group context.

• A software development service.  The focus is on niche procurement tools to assist with more advanced procurement service delivery; and
• A consulting service to facilitate the modernisation of the purchasing function (essentially the turning around of underperforming purchasing functions) or to provide assistance with any of the more complex problems procurement faces.

The CIPS Database of Procurement Professionals™ (A joint venture with CIPS Africa)

The CIPS Database of Procurement Professionals™ is located on: www.procurementprofessionals.co.za

If you wish to register as a procurement practitioner, please go to www.procurementprofessionals.co.za/register.php

If you are interested in using the service as an employer or as a recruiter, please contact me: +27 (0)82 322 8995 and andre@andrebasson.co.za or go to www.procurementprofessionals.co.za/registerClient.php for the Interactive Demo.

Software Development Service

Examples of areas where a dedicated tool may assist you in procurement service delivery include tender evaluation, spend analysis, materials cataloguing, procurement staff strength estimation, price variation evaluation / tracking, inflation index (similar to CPI) and benefits tracking.  The service includes the preparation of a throw-away working or near-working model and the subsequent development of the program by a professional.  The CIPS Database of Procurement Professionals™ is a working example of such a development.

Consulting Service

I am available to assist in any process aimed at realising the full potential of the procurement function in your organisation. I believe in an approach that:

• Promotes consolidation of an organisation's purchasing power.
• Recognises the need for master data management.
• Ensures visibility of spend both at supplier and commodity (category) level.
• Longer, flexible but formalised relationships with suppliers.
• Provides control over pricing at the item level for at least the top 20% of the company's suppliers/commodities, which normally represent in excess of 80% of the value of all non-pay expenditure.
• Utilises multi-disciplinary teams, co-ordinated by the procurement function, to lead the so-called "strategic sourcing" process.
• Minimises "maverick spending", that is the acquisition of materiel and services, normally directly by the users, in a manner that evades the formal, preferred procurement processes.
• Accepts that "e-procurement" is merely another tool in the procurement toolbox. That it has forced many procurement functions to re-look and improve their procurement function is true, though. For others, who applied sound principles pre-2000, it simply meant improved transaction flow - not limited to quotes and orders, of course.
• Has zero-tolerance of white and blue collar crime in procurement.
• Acknowledges that without measurement, there will not be control.

It is critical that any attempt to transform the procurement function:

• Has the full support of the CEO and that there is buy-in from senior management. Without these sine qua nons, the endeavour has very little chance of success;
• Is a "basics up" process. Bolting on solutions (of any type) to an inherently flawed process is unlikely to produce the expected results or to be sustainable.